Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani yesterday convened an emergency meeting with heads of security agencies and stakeholders from the frontline communities in Kaduna Central.
The resurgence of banditry and kidnapping dominated talks at the parley, which was attended by stakeholders from seven local governments of Chikun, Birnin Gwari, Kajuru, Igabi, Kachia, and Kagarko local government areas.
The governor, who said efforts were being made to rescue the 287 schoolchildren abducted from Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area, expressed concerns about the rising number of informants in the communities, pledging efforts to identify and apprehend them.
Also yesterday, the House of Assembly member representing the Kajuru Constituency, Usman Danlami Stingo, told reporters that members of the communities affected by the recent attacks have been traumatized and economically impoverished.
The governor told his audience that had assurances from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, during his meetings with them that the abducted school pupils will all be rescued safely.
He, however, urged local government chairmen and traditional rulers to report any strange face in their community to security agencies to curb infiltration by informants and other people with dastard intentions.
Sani said: “I have series of discussions with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, and the service chiefs, they have done so much. Lots of progress have been made, and I can assure you that our children will return back home safely.
“We will continue to fight until we get our children back. At the end of this meeting, we will have enough information, idea and strategy to work together. We would do everything to assist the security agencies in protecting our citizens. We are working to ensure their safe release.”
“We are here this afternoon to have a meeting which would be interactive between Kaduna state government, local government chairmen, security heads, traditional rulers, and members of the Kaduna State House of Assembly from the seven local governments affected by the incident of insecurity in the last few weeks. We are here to look at the efforts towards intelligence gathering and sharing especially at the grassroots level.
“In the last six months, we have been having meetings which showed that we have enough synergy between state, local government, traditional rulers and security heads.
“This is to support the security agencies in the state towards intelligence gathering and sharing. We have some setbacks in the last few weeks. The Local government chairmen and Kaduna state House of Assembly members, we have to look at other areas especially the incident in Kajuru local government area with series of incidents within 48 hours.
“We have people within the community who should have alerted the security agencies when the first incident happened before the second incident.
“We believe that the traditional rulers have important roles to play in monitoring the community and they should have enough knowledge of their subjects to raise the alarm over anything that is strange. They should fish out strange individuals and report them to security agencies.”
He added: “We realised in this meeting that, there are a lot of complaints about some disgruntling elements that are penetrating some communities.
“The issue of security is pertinent to everyone and we believe traditional rulers have massive responsibility in assisting the security agencies and particularly ensuring that all the strangers that come into the communities are identified.
“We are suspecting that some of them are informants and today I have instructed the traditional rulers and the local government chairmen to fish out most of these strange individuals and report to the security agencies immediately. It will go a long way in enhancing security efforts and also deepening our intelligence gathering and sharing information.
“I have also instructed the Local Government chairmen to go back to their local governments and stay there and also report to us any suspicious movement.
“We also discussed the progress we have made so far and I can say here, most of the children in Kuriga community, we are having a lot of interface with the parents in the community.
“Yesterday, the IG deployed some mobile policeman to Kuriga community, we are making progress and we are also having a lot of support from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the service Chiefs are also trying. So it’s only a matter of time.”